PERFORMERS: BENNY HILL

Born: January 24 1924
Died: April 20 1992

(by Peter Tatchell, from LAUGH MAGAZINE #22, 2001)

It’s been said that Benny Hill was the most famous comedy artist in the world. His shows were (and, in some cases, still are) regularly screened in over a hundred countries around the globe. Comedian, pop singer, mime, clown … he was one of the most popular funnymen in the last fifty years, a man who also scripted the sketches and composed the musical numbers he performed.

And apart from Benny, you can count on the thumbs of one hand the only other performer to have starred in his own television programme for four decades … Bob Hope. And like Benny, Bob rationed himself to a handful of specials every year.

Born Alfred Hill in Southampton in 1924, a childhood fascination with the theatre led to tentative steps towards a stage career in his mid-teens. The Second World War intervened and, while in the army, he adopted the name Benny (feeling it had a more American show biz ring to it). By the end of the war he was appearing in Stars In Battledress productions, before being demobbed in late 1947.

The forces had unearthed a new generation of comedy talent … names like Hancock, Howerd, Edwards and a foursome who would soon be known collectively as The Goons. For Benny Hill, civvy street meant appearances in revues and summer seasons with occasional work on B.B.C. radio shows like Beginners Please and Variety Bandbox and as a regular in such long-forgotten series as Listen, My Children and The Third Division. For a time, he also worked as straight man for Reg Varney, but didn’t seem to be much at ease delivering one-liners direct to the audience.

Benny felt more at home in character, hiding behind a funny voice and wearing an outlandish costume. He preferred to appear in sketches and do impressions of the famous, and thought the infant world of British television might offer more scope for his ideas. To take stock of his talents, he spent several months off work creating dozens of scripts, before approaching B.B.C. producer Ronnie Waldman with a large bundle of his handiwork. Waldman was so impressed by the originality of the newcomer that he scheduled Hill to fill a 45-minute timeslot later that month with a selection of the sketches.

The special was billed as Hi There! and, though failing to garner much enthusiasm from the press of the day, it proved popular with the minimal numbers of viewers who owned television sets at the time. The B.B.C. liked what they saw and Benny was signed to a radio series called Anything Goes and eventually to host a monthly TV-variety programme The Centre Show in 1953 and Showcase a year later.

British television had created its first star and, by the mid-1950s (when the arrival of I.T.V. effectively jump-started the medium), the B.B.C. had elevated Benny to star in his own occasional series of specials. Soon after, he was voted the TV Personality of the Year (for 1954/5) and appeared in the first of several Royal Variety Performances. Benny Hill had found a career path that would sustain him for over thirty years … a variety mixture of regular characters, saucy musical numbers and parodies of popular shows of the day.

Hill didn’t confine his efforts to B.B.C. television. In 1956 he starred in a feature film called Who Done It? (and later appeared in lesser roles in Light Up The Sky, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Italian Job). He hosted specials on commercial television for Lou Grade’s A.T.V. company, and could be seen in the West End in such stage productions as Paris By Night and Fine Fettle, and later in a brief summer season engagement in Let’s Make A Night Of It.

By 1962 (following the success of the Galton & Simpson Comedy Playhouse format, which spawned the mega-hit Steptoe And Son), the B.B.C. convinced Benny to venture down the sitcom trail himself with a series of unrelated 30-minute playlets. He created three seasons titled Benny Hill before returning to his usual variety specials.

With Johnny Speight having adapted his successful Arthur Haynes television scripts for a B.B.C. radio version, Benny decided to follow the same route and was happy to recycle some of his better material to form The Benny Hill Show on the Light Programme.

Despite his popularity in Britain, Benny still yearned for success in the U.S., and in 1967 signed with A.T.V. to star in two colour specials as part of a series of summer replacements for Red Skelton on the C.B.S. network. The venture wasn’t a success, but it did convince him that he should embrace the new colour technology when it was formally introduced on British screens in late 1969.

And, in a momentous decision, he abandoned the B.B.C. and signed with Thames, who had just been awarded London’s weekday commercial licence.

Benny Hill and Thames Television enjoyed twenty years of enormous success, and his enduring fame rests on the 59 one-hour specials he produced for them. Benny had long before abandoned the tension and uncertainty of performing live in a theatre … he now insisted on the security of working to an invited audience of fans, supported by his stock company of players. He felt comfortable with regulars such as Henry McGee, Bob Todd and bald-headed Jackie Wright, who started out as little more than an extra before a wave of popularity resulted in Benny writing him speaking parts in sketches. Old favourites such as Fred Scuttle and newcomers like the word-mangling Chinaman Mr. Chow Mein became perennial favourites on the shows, and before long Benny even had a hit-single on the pop charts called Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West) which started out as a vocal in one of his routines. The Thames shows led Benny back to the big screen too … he filmed a theatrical short called The Waiters, and a couple of years later transferred 90-minutes of television highlights to a moneymaking feature release called The Best Of Benny Hill.

Unlike the B.B.C. specials, Benny’s Thames work was now being seen on commercial television screens in far off Australia, to very healthy ratings … but America was still to be conquered. It wasn’t until 1979 when a distributer of Thames product in the U.S., Don Taffner, decided to offer half-hour versions of the shows to independent stations across the country. Billed as a latter day equivalent to The Jackie Gleason Show (with blackouts, regular characters and colourful dancers), the footage was tightly edited to leave out any dialogue or material the Americans wouldn’t understand. And, one by one, stations from coast to coast began screening the programmes to amazing response from viewers. Within months, Benny Hill skyrocketed from total unknown to television’s favourite funnyman.

In Britain, Thames continued on with their usual three Benny Hill specials each year and by the early 80s a raunchy dance group dubbed Hill’s Angels (inspired by the success of Kenny Everett’s Hot Gossip) had become an integral part of the programme. Several years later, a noticeably older and more avuncular Hill added a handful of cute youngsters to his performing team and they became known as Hill’s Little Angels. These later programmes relied more on one-joke quickies and visual material, which were more appropriate for editing into the half-hour format required for the American syndicated editions.

With a career that prospered well into the 1980s, Benny eventually fell foul of the self-appointed guardians of political correctness who decided humour about buxom blondes, jealous wives, mothers-in-law and all other remnants of burlesque and the saucy seaside postcard should be replaced by cynical observational analysis of the mundanities of everyday life. The speech police decreed that punchlines were out … four-letter words were in.

It wasn’t so much the style of his humour, though, that led Thames Television to create a blaze of publicity by suddenly terminating Hill’s contract in 1989, rather that his format had become stale and the constant repetition of gags (or even entire routines) had resulted in a noticeable downturn of ratings. Hill himself was now into his mid-sixties, and the cherubic grin and twinkling eyes had lost some of their cuteness when coupled with grey hair and extra chins.

The Thames decision was a colossal jolt to his ego, and Benny found it hard to understand how someone so popular around the world could now be banished from the television screens of his homeland. It was also a surprise to Don Taffner, whose company found itself without new product to syndicate.

To solve the problem, Taffner (along with ex-Thames supremo Phillip Jones) decided to independently produce a new batch of specials set in major cities around the globe, under the umbrella title Benny Hill’s World Tour. The first was taped with outside footage shot in New York and soon after, ITV company Central Television indicated it was also eager to secure his services.

Benny seemed on the road to a major revival, but things were not to be. Heart troubles put him in hospital twice in early 1992 and having been unable to reach him over the Easter weekend, his director friend Dennis Kirkland broke into his flat to discover the star had died whilst watching television. Television had been his life, and was with him to the end.

Series 1: B.B.C., Fridays Feb 23 to Mar 30 1962 (6 x 30 min)Portrait Of A Bridegroom (with June Whitfield, Patricia Hayes)
A study of a bridegroom, seen through the eyes of several relatives and friendsA Pair Of Socks
The story of a year in the life of a pair of socksThe Constant Viewer
Bert Noggswith is a television addict who identifies himself with the programmes he watchesThe Changeling
An old tramp tells how he was one of two babies accidentally swapped 60 years beforeThe Before Man
Mervyn Cruddy, a man who works as the loser in tv commercials, tries to find a lady friendAunt Mirabelle
A woman plots to become a rich widow

Series 2: B.B.C., Fridays Nov 30 1962 to Jan 11 1963 (7 x 25 min)The Mystery Of Black Bog Manor
A reporter visits the owner of a priceless diamond collectionCry Of Innocence
A humble newspaper buyer comes to the attention of the police because he resembles the man they are investigatingThe Time Bicycle (with Graham Stark)
A time traveller from 1902 has trouble adapting in the presentMervyn’s Christmas Pudding
details unknownThe Secret Of Planet Seven (with Graham Stark)
An astronaut is tempted by a group of minute space womenThe Shooting Of Willie The Kid (with John Bluthal, Maggie Fitzgibbon, Bill Kerr, Graham Stark)
A visitor arrives in the wild west when his uncle is thought to have been killed by Willie the KidThe Vanishing Man
A gas-fitter makes off with the Slate Club money whilst besotted by a balalaika player

Series 3: B.B.C., Tuesdays Sep 3 to Oct 8 1963 (6 x 25 min)Mr. Apollo (with Yootha Joyce, Graham Stark)
An unfit health king finds himself in court because of a typographical errorThe Visitor
A farm lad offers to help a couple who lose a cuff link on a visit to the countryMr. Jolly (with Patricia Hayes, Dermot Kelly)
A series of visitors cause problems for the head of Laughter UnlimitedThe Trouble Maker
An electrician’s mate causes havoc at a cocktail partyThe Dresser
The inexperienced nephew of a stage manager is given a job in the theatreThe Taxidermist (with Dermot Kelly)
Two strangers decide to become taxidermists

Benny Hill Sings (?)
Pye LP NPL 18133 (1966),Moving On AgainThe Andalucian GypsiesIn The Papers Golden Days Flying South My Garden Of Love I’ll Never Know Wild Women Jose’s Cantina Rose The Egg Marketing Board Tango Those Days The Old FiddlerWhat A World

Benny Hill Sings Old Favourites
Pye/Golden Guinea LP GGL 0363 (1966)The Harvest Of LoveI’ll Never Know Gypsy Rock The Piccolo Song Jose’s Cantina Transistor Radio Lonely Boy BAM-ba 3688 What A World Those Days Gather In The Mushrooms

Benny At The B.B.C.
Decca LP LK 4723 (1965)
(reissued in 1971 as The World Of Benny Hill Decca PA 116)Interviews Layabouts Picnic Film Director-Producer J. Arthur Scuttle – From Moscow With Love The Sunday Ben Down Your Way Visits Dalton Abbot Warlords Of East Grinstead The Holiday King Mr. Fred Scuttle The Jolly Robbers

This Is Benny Hill
E.M.I. LP THIS 27
(reissued in 1977 as Words And Music E.M.I./Note LP NTS 135,and as Ernie E.M.I. CD 7 99733 2)Ernie Anna Marie Broken-Hearted Lovers’ Stew Colleen Rachel The Beach At San Tropez Suzy Ting-A-Ling-A-Loo The Dustbins Of Your Mind Fad Eyed Fal Ted Tour Guide Interview Making A Commercial The Birds And The Bees

The Golden Hour Of Benny Hill
Pye/Golden Hour LP GH 524 (1972)The Harvest Of Love Gypsy Rock Piccolo Song Pepys Diary Transistor Radio Lonely Boy BAM-ba 3688 Gather In The Mushrooms Moving On Again The Andalucian Gypsies The Egg Marketing Board Tango In The Papers Golden Days Flying South My Garden Of Love I’ll Never Know Wild Women Jose’s Cantina Rose Those Days The Old Fiddler What A World

The Best Of …
Continuum CD (1993)Ernie Bianca Gypsy Dance New York Rap Star Names Just Wanna Be In Your Band Down On The Farm Unlucky Luke Pepys Diary Older Woman Cafe Ole Graffiti Lifeguards Go Round Again

Benny Hill Sings (?)
Castle CD PACD 008 (1990)Ernie Pepys Diary Transistor Radio Gypsy Rock The Piccolo Song Lonely Boy Gather In The Mushrooms Harvest Of Love BAMba 3688 Moving On Again The Andalucian Gypsies The Egg Marketing Board Tango In The Papers Golden Days Flying South My Garden Of Love I’ll Never Know Wild Women Jose’s Cantina Rose Those Days The Old Fiddler What A World Broken-Hearted Lovers Stew The Beach At San Tropez

On Top With Benny Hill
Spectrum CD 550 765 2 (1995)Gather In The Mushrooms Harvest Of Love My Garden Of Love Pepys’ Diary In The Papers Jose’s Cantina Flying South What A World The Andalucian Gypsies Transistor Radio The Egg Marketing Board Tango Lonely Boy Gypsy Rock Wild Women I’ll Never Know The Old Fiddler Bamba 3688 The Piccolo Song

The Ultimate Collection
Pulse CD PLS CD 273 (1998)Gather In The Mushrooms Transistor Radio Harvest Of Love Pepys’ Diary Gypsy Rock The Piccolo Song Lonely Boy Moving On Again The Andalucian Gypsies The Egg Marketing Board Tango Bamba 3688 What A World I’ll Never Know My Garden Of Love In The Papers Golden Days Flying South Wild Women Jose’s Cantina Rose Those Days The Old Fiddler Ernie

Benny Hill Time
B.B.C. double-cassette ZBBC 1722
features broadcasts of
February 23*
March 8*
March 15*
April 5 1964(* misdated on sleeve)

VIDEOS

Benny And The Jests (B.B.C. United States and Australia only)
extracts from B.B.C. shows of 1958, 1961, 1965, 1967 and 1968Beat The Clock 24 Hours – Anglo French Friends League Director Fred Scuttle’s The Knock Sportsview – Show Jumping Soap Box Jury Scuttle’s Fun Boy Club Orchestrated Breakfast The Stamp Collector Hollywood And The Stars The Y.M.C.A. Strangers In The Cinema

Bennies From Heaven (B.B.C. United States and Australia only)
extracts from B.B.C. shows of 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967Trooping The Colour Eurovision English Lesson German Commercials Viewer Researcher Fred Scuttle and Shows That Didn’t Make It (incl. The Old Fiddler) Making A Commercial Adverts (Indigestion, Gravy, Run-down Wife, Cleanser) Expose Of A Male Model The Egg Marketing Board Tango J. Arthur Clinker’s Quickie Movie Medieval Royal Conspiracy

The Good, The Bawd And The Benny (B.B.C. United States and Australia only)
extracts from B.B.C. shows of 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968Wife Swapping In A Lift Opportunity Calls (incl. In The Papers) Scuttle-Air Knicker’s World: Continental Divorce The Strolling Ones (incl. Rose) On The Orient Express Sexual Harrassment Armand And Michaela Menace Police – Friend Or Foe? Laddyboys: Tex Cymbal (incl. My Garden Of Love)

* in the U.S.A., the following NTSC tapes all featured 60 minutes of highlights from the Thames shows …

Benny Hill’s Video Revue

Benny Hill’s One-Night Video Stand

Benny Hill’s Video Sideshow

Benny Hill’s Home Video Drive-In

Benny Hill’s Video Follies

Benny Hill’s Video Spotlight

Benny Hill’s Crazy World

DVDs

Benny Hill – The Lost YearsB.B.C. DVD (U.S. only)
reissues the videos Benny and the Jests, Bennies from Heaven and The Good, The Bawd and the Benny
plus a bonus 35 minute compilation of more extracts from BBC shows of 1965:The Bully on the Beach
Vintage Years of Cinema presents Passengers of Passion
Ready, Steady, Go (incl. Only the Lonely, Movin’ on Again)
This Week’s Record Releases (incl. Those Days)
TV Drama Director Jean-Paul Scuttle – One Step Behind

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